'The poverty hits me every time I travel with Unicef'

Writer Cathy Kelly

Independent.ie Business

The author Cathy Kelly lives in Wicklow with her husband and two sons. In her earlier career, she worked as a journalist with The Sunday World. Her first novel, Woman to Woman, was published in 2007 and became an international best seller. She has published numerous novels since, including Homecoming, Someone Like You, and Secrets of a Happy Marriage.

Kelly is also passionate about children's rights and is a goodwill ambassador for Unicef. For details on how to support Unicef, including its Syria winter appeal and its campaign to help the Rohingya children, visit unicef.ie.

What's the most important lesson about money which your career as a writer has taught you?

Money doesn't make people happy. I've met all sorts and it's true.

What's the most expensive country you ever visited?

As a young journalist in the 1980s, I went on a press trip to Switzerland. A round of drinks in a posh hotel was very expensive. Needless to say, we bought nothing except chocolate. One bar cost a fiver.

What's the best advice you ever got about money?

I grew up in a house where we had a mortgage but no loans. Apart from a house, I don't believe in buying things with money I don't have.

What's the most expensive thing about being a parent?

How fast kids grow. Those nice runners you bought last month suddenly no longer fit. Cue another schlep to the sports shop.

Is there any experience you had as a Unicef ambassador which really opened your eyes about the extent of poverty in the world?

Every time I travel with Unicef, the poverty and injustice hits me. In Mozambique, children die because nobody can afford the $6 mosquito net that would help save them from malaria.

The Syrian refugees in Al Zata'ari camp in Jordan (half of them are kids) have just the clothes on their back. They have no heaters in the freezing Jordanian winter, and they mainly live in tents. €5 buys a thermal blanket for them, €40 a winter kit for a child. The imbalance of world economics is something that people who can spare a fiver or forty quid can help redress.

What was your worst job?

I've never had a worst job. I even learned something when cleaning under the tables in McDonald's with a scraper to get off the chewing gum: that I hate chewing gum.

Apart from property, what's the most expensive thing you have ever bought?

A lovely but insane Porsche Cayenne which fills me with both guilt and joy.

What was your biggest financial mistake?

Thinking that property investment in the boom was a good pension plan.

What was your best financial killing?

Writing my first book. I got no advance and wrote on a second-hand computer at a second-hand kitchen table. I made not a penny for about a year but it changed my life.

If you won the Euromillions, what would you do with the money?

Set up a charity foundation to work with Unicef, the Rape Crisis Centre, Barnardos, animal rescue centres and to provide worldwide help for women and girls raped in conflict.

If you could design your own euro note, whose face would you put on it?

How about some of the great Celtic goddesses?

iTunes or Spotify?

Spotify. I am a music fiend. I live to dance and sing. I can't sing!

Would you buy Irish property now?

No. I have one house, that's enough for me.

What three things would you not be able to do without if you were tightening your belt?

Highlights from the lovely Rosemary in the Brown Sugar hair salon, Blackrock; treats for my family; and flowers.